


sometimes the silence guides your mind

by asymptotes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Simon Cowell as a group therapist, Teen Mental Health Ward AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asymptotes/pseuds/asymptotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>mental health ward!ot5 fic basically </p>
<p>the boys have their issues and help each other out</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes the silence guides your mind

**Author's Note:**

> this is all i have so far but i'll continue it if anyone wants

It was never supposed to happen like this. 

Never. 

His summer after college was supposed to be lounging and basically shooting the shit with his buddies, not – he didn’t want to think about it.

“Harry? Harry are you listening, dear? Your step-father and I, we love you. This is supposed the be the best facility north of-”

Harry lethargically leaned his head against the car window and turned up the song he was listening to.

He tried to let his mind wander, but his thoughts couldn’t help but snap back to the reason he was in this situation. 

 

_Him. Half out of his mind on the floor of his room, gazing at the some band poster on his ceiling through half-lidded eyes clutching the near-empty pill bottle in his hand wondering_

_“Why haven’t I died yet?”_

 

Though perhaps an accident, it was a failure. Like everything else in his life. 

Harry hadn’t realized the car had stopped until he felt his mother pull a headphone out of his ear and pat his curls softly. She was wide-eyed, obviously waiting for him to say something.

“Erm, it was only supposed to be a couple of … I just wanted to see what it felt like, basically.”

Her chuckle came out more like a dry sob.

“And I’m the Queen of England.”

Next thing, she was out and opening his car door. 

“Well come on now, the check-in’s over in an hour and we still have to unload your things.”

As slowly as humanly possible, Harry stepped out of the car and looked up at the building, which somehow looked humble and imposing at the same time. 

Well this was going to be absolute shit.

*

Zayn sat shivering in some waiting-room. 

He should’ve known to wear more layers. He was fucking freezing. Of course.

The place was getting on his nerves already. 

They had taken away his pack of cigarettes at the door. 

And his pocketknife. 

And his packet of granola. 

He’d been carrying it around as a token, a medal of sorts. 

A reminder that he hadn’t had a moment of weakness. 

Yet.

“Mr. Malik?” 

His head snapped up at his last name, his ears unaccustomed to the word.

“We’re ready to show you were you’ll be rooming for the duration of your stay.”

She paused politely, as if he was supposed to thank her. Zayn stood up and slung his duffle bag over his shoulder and gave the guide (nurse?) an up-and-down look once. 

She could’ve been fit if her eyes didn’t look so tired and her bun wasn’t so severe.

She was probably tired of seeing kids like him everyday, all of them hollow-eyed and disillusioned. 

“…Right! Well welcome to Xavier Factor Teen Mental Heath Ward! You’ll be staying here for however long Dr. Cowell sees fit. We do allow off days, but only if you’ve earned them.  
You’ll be roomed with another patient your age and of course, the use of drugs, alcohol, weaponry et cetera is strictly prohibited.  
Any questions?”

Zayn tried to attribute his dizziness to her words, not the fact that he hadn't put anything into his stomach since yesterday morning. 

He decided to be unnaturally cheeky.

“Sure! When’s supper?”

*

Liam tapped his knee for the hundredth time, his feet bobbing (involuntarily) against the carpet floor. He had to repeat his introduction in his head one more time - just to be sure. 

“Hello, m’names Liam. Liam Payne. I’m 17, turning 18 in a month, mind you.  
I’m just here because I like things to be clean and just right, that’s all. And some situations get me bothered but my dad says that’s normal.  
As soon as this is all sorted, I can get out of here and get back to college and my life. Shouldn’t take too long, it shouldn’t.”

The other boy in the room looked up at him dimly. Liam couldn’t help but note his bright blonde hair that seemed to stand up in every direction. The boy looked like he was going to say something, but instead shook his head slightly and went back to the bag of crisps balanced in his lap. 

Liam’s heart almost stopped. Had he said any of that out loud? He sat completely still in dread. He wasn’t even a day in and he’d already been branded as weird. 

But that was ridiculous, he tried to remind himself. You’re in a bloody mental hospital. 

A couple more minutes passed in that tense silence that can only exist between strangers who didn’t quite want to be strangers anymore. Then the blond boy got up and plopped himself down in a chair near Liam’s. 

“Oi! Hi there mate. The name’s Niall Horan. I heard what you said earlier. It don’t think it should take too long. We’re just a bit early!” 

Niall dusted the crumbs from the crisps on to his jeans and held out the hand that wasn’t holding the bag for Liam to shake. 

So he had heard. Liam couldn’t shake his hand. He couldn’t. He looked up at Niall blankly and all he could muster was: “You’re Irish!”

Niall dropped his hand and laughed a great whooping laugh that echoed throughout the near-empty room. 

“That’s true, mate. Now tell me something about yourself.” 

Liam couldn’t believe his luck.

Though he hated being put into conversations without his choosing, he was glad for someone to talk to. Someone startingly normal that he could maybe even be friends with when he was here. A friend he could take away from this, what ever this was, when everything was all said and done. 

He decided to start from the beginning. 

“Well, my name is Liam Payne.”

Niall’s perpetual grin widened a little bit more. 

“Yeah, I heard that too.” 

*

If this wasn’t a challenge, you wouldn’t be interested. 

Dr. Cowell tried to tell himself this as he took of his eyeglasses and reclined in his leather chair with a heavy sigh. 

He had an opportunity here to actually make a difference rather than just mindlessly prescribe pills to people whose lives moved entirely too fast or too slow. 

He hadn’t gotten his Therapy certificate for the money, obviously. (Being a psychiatrist made him enough of that.) It was to help people. Because regardless of whatever his friends told him about his “brutally honest demeanour” - that’s what he wanted to do.

He fiddled with the nameplate on his desk which dutifully read “Simon Cowell – Therapist”. 

No, he would no longer be a med-pusher, but a guide of sorts, a counsellor, a mentor even, that would really help troubled teens.

And it would start with the group of five boys he’d been assigned to. He shuffled their files on his desk tersely. A rather mixed group, to say the least. 

One with an EDNOS diagnosis, one with medium-level OCD and social anxiety, one an alcoholic, one fresh off of a botched suicide attempt, and one-

Simon opened the last file and peered down at the mug shot paper-clipped to the court papers. 

A jaded-looking boy with a wispy fringe looked back at him with steel blue eyes and a slight smirk on his face, as if he was mocking the entire situation. 

As if daring him, or anyone else for the matter, to even try. 

The boy had gravely injured a pedestrian while speeding in his car during a manic,  
drug-ridden high. 

Bipolar disorder. He would never tell his colleagues, but Simon reckoned the boy was a right posh punk.

It had been Xavier Factor or prison. 

_Louis Tomlinson, 19, Probationary Rehabilitation Discharge._

They were supposed to meet for a preliminary discussion before the group therapy sessions with the other four. 

Simon checked his wristwatch impatiently, growing more irritable than he already was. 

Louis was late.

*


End file.
